JOHN MAJOR Born - 1943, Worcester Park, London. Education - Left school at 16 with a now-famous lack of qualifications. Family - Father was a trapeze artist. Met wife Norma in 1970, a home economics teacher. Married within six months, they had two children, Elizabeth and James. Early career - Trainee accountant with City of London firm Price Forbes. Political career - Major entered the House of Commons as MP for Huntingdon in 1979 - the day that Mrs Thatcher entered Downing Street.

He was parliamentary private secretary to a series of Home Office ministers, a Government Whip, then a junior and then a middle-ranking social security minister before entering the Cabinet after the 1987 general election as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In Mrs Thatcher's highly controversial Cabinet reshuffle of July 1989, she abruptly removed Sir Geoffrey Howe from the Foreign Office and had no hesitation in putting John Major in his place.

Later that year he became Chancellor of the Exchequer for the last traumatic 12 months of Mrs Thatcher's reign as Prime Minister, until she was forced to resign on November 22, 1990, when he took over as PM.

In 1993 Major launched his ill-fated "Back to Basics" slogan, immediately the subject of widespread scorn and derision amid a season of sleaze and seedi-ness.

Mr Major fiercely denied and then faced down, with threats of libel actions, reports that he had an association with Clare Latimer, a caterer whose business, Clare's Kitchen, provided services at Downing Street. The accusers were forced to back down and apologise.

Major's final Parliament as Prime Minister was dogged by Tory back-bench sleaze, both sexual and financial, and in 1997, his party suffered its worst defeat for decades.

Mr Major announced at once that he would quit the party leadership, did not stand at the next election, and in 2001 declined the peerage which is almost a right of former Prime Ministers. Current status - Mr Major has since taken up board or advisory positions with banking, investment and engineering firms. He has also spent his time enjoying other interests, notably cricket.

Best known for - His bank manager appearance and non existent upper lip led to Major being characterised as the "grey" man of Westminster. TV show Spitting Image even had his face modelled in a deep shade of grey.

But Major was adamant he would not be something he was not for the image makers, saying he had not changed the length of his hair, the style of his suits, or the colour of his shirts since becoming PM. Moreover, he was perfectly content to remain "the same plug-ugly as I always was" on television.

Typical quote - "I am what I am and people will have to take me for what I am. The image-makers will not find me in their tutelage."